


Cutting Edge

by maximum_overboner



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: A slice of life thing, Black Hat faces his greatest and most indomitable foe yet, Gen, lighthearted comedy, old man goes about his day and complains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14261439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: Black Hat faces an opponent as cold and calculating as he is.





	Cutting Edge

The clock ticked gently. The curtains, drawn. A scotch on the rocks, two fingers. A cigarette, his third.

Black Hat narrowed his eyes, taking a draw of his cigarette and puffing out smoke. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. No words needed to be exchanged, any villain worth their salt could communicate intent with a glare and a smirk, and Black Hat was a mine’s worth. But there was no smirking, this time. Just a cold, hard gaze, at a cold, hard light. Two unfeeling, unblinking things. Black Hat considered mustering up some respect and, for once, was tempted, but quashed the notion as he knew he would be afforded none and he refused to grovel. If he was going to try, he was going to try, and if he was going to fail he was going to do it with a resigned, steely dignity. The same dignity that comes with a sabre’s tip to your throat.

“You again,” he said. No answer. There never was. Oh, how his life would be so much easier if there was. He pecked a random key with his nail. The screen lit up. Login. One of the faces of his multifarious foe. Keen and perspicacious, making even Black Hat look ill-bred in its shining glory. All the information Black Hat could ever gorge on regarding death, torture, subjugation and illness, locked behind a simple screen. A rhythmic tapping of keys, percussive and pleasant in the hands of Flug but halting and shameful in his own. This problem would only get worse the longer he left it. Technology was shambling ever onward, wrapping its tendrils around all aspects of everyday life. It was now becoming too important to ignore and too complex to put off. The first devious puzzle. Putting in the password. Black Hat smiled. Flug told him the secrets of the shift key. A key component, he would say, if he was an idiot. Crushing this mythical shift key under his pointer finger, he slowly tapped out the letters. Why couldn’t this thing be in order? Why would human beings establish an alphabet, then mix it up for no reason? He surveyed his work.

‘*************’

No! God, no! This wasn’t what he entered! 

He brought his fist to his mouth, looking forlornly away. He downed his scotch. “Infernal contraption,” he spat, contemplating tossing it out of the window. An odd symbol caught his eye. What could this be? Black Hat placed his hand on the mouse, dragging the cursor to it laboriously and clicking. Yes! His password was there the whole time, though obscured by these tiny, tiny stars! But Black Hat was a master of obfuscation, and thus could not be fooled by this clumsy attempt to keep him out of his own calculating device.

‘SombreroNegro’

Flug begged him to make his password more secure but the thought of adding extra characters filled Black Hat with a morbid dread that was foreign and unsettling to him. He hit the enter key, smug.

… Incorrect password? How? It was his name. He knew his name, his staff knew his name, everyone knew his name. He checked the spelling. Flug was the one who set the password and Flug would know to make it something simple, something Black Hat could remember in this space-age future.

‘Sombrero Negro’

Incorrect. He had to think outside the box.

‘sombrero negro’

Incorrect.

‘Listen here you fucking thing. You awful little slab of green boards. You will let me access my files. You will let me go about my business. You will leave me be. Do you have any idea who I am? Do you have any idea who you’re trying to screw over? I can and will end you on three different planes of reality. I’ll find the no-life, scrawny-necked technician who brought you into existence and I will kill him. I will eat your father in front of you and I will make you watch.’

Correct! Black Hat smiled. He knew it had to be something simple. He adjusted his reading monocle. Sweat beaded his brow, he had been there for twenty minutes. He loosened his tie.

Yes, there was the blue screen, flooded with the tiles of information. Some were useful, others mystifying, and some opened odd Japanese cartoon games with large breasted women. Black Hat reminded himself to scold Flug later. He scanned the screen for the electronic mail symbol. Oh, why couldn’t he just write a normal letter? He could send presents in them, like flyers, or fingers along with ransom notes. He had a ring for wax seals, was he expected just to let it rust? Slowly, he checked his mailbox, ignoring the heaps of sexually explicit letters Dementia sent him. One from Flug, two hours ago, perfect. Being out of the country was no excuse to skip work.

‘Here are the blueprints for the device you requested. Please look them over. If you have any queries PLEASE email me, I’ll be in talks all day and phones are for emergency only, like we discussed.’

Oh. Right, that. Black Hat zoned out during that conversation. In his defence, who would willingly listen to Flug?

Suddenly, an interruption. A small, black square, and within it talk of some sort of ‘driver’ and some sort of installation procedure. Black Hat did not know what this was, or what the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options presented to him would do. Fearing for the safety of his computer he clicked ‘yes’. Nothing happened, but the screen flickered black for a moment, then many colours, then back to black. The screen a technicolour wonder of potential data loss and worrying text, then a blue screen that ate up the whole surface. Shaking, Black Hat reached for his rotary phone.

“Flug,” Black Hat hissed, completely ruining a lecture on the importance of aeronautical engineering in the mad science community, “this thing is broken.”

**Author's Note:**

> i received a few requests for black hat doing old people things, and nothing says old people like technological incompetence


End file.
